Probably will need to break up with my boyfriend

[marycontrary]

Oh, I am doing what I can to baby myself. Since it is so affordable, I got a massage from a chiroproactor/physical therapist, and some acupuncture from the public health clinic. Got a few of my ethnic food snacky treats here at the market this morning. Went to sit a the central park. Set up education training for a business idea I have with a craftsmen here in town. And handled some snaggy little problems with my supplier without a skip. This is the most competent I have been in years. The last 2 weeks, my stress caused memory problems started to vanish, and concentration (was dead and gone) is roaring back. Again, it has been many years since functioning like this.

So I am functioning quite well at this moment, despite of all the stress.

I cured my thyroid disease, lost weight, got in good shape. The problem is, I can't get situated. It's like I am constantly doing triage putting out proverbial fires all the time. Damage control. I don't get it. What is the higher power trying to tell me? I feel like the butt of a practical joke.

And thank you so much, SC.

[C.]

Hello Mary,

It's painful, but I hope those tears help to wash your heart and bit by bit reduce the sadness.  Your newfound abilities to embrace your feelings and walk through them to the other side will help you during this time of difficulty.  And know that here you have a community of people who are willing to just sit with you while you feel what you need to feel.  Te apoyamos y te entendemos.

For the first time in my life I am 2+ months without a husband or bf.  The weird thing is that during those times without (lasting 1-2 months) it felt like foreverrrrr!!!!  Como siempre amiga!  Now that I'm getting healthy I'm beginning to feel the "need" for a couple relationship less and less.  I hope that the healthy me several months (or years?) down the road is able to meet someone to simply walk this path of life together.  Like you said, someone healthy and willing to grow.  I don't care about degrees or money either.  I've always felt those were my responsibility anyway.  No drugs, no alcohol, relatively fit & nutritious eating, faithful, honest and kind.  Then I make things more complicated by looking for someone who has a multicultural world view, is over 45 y.o., preferably fluent in Spanish, and accepting of unique religious perspectives.  I've lately decided I'd kind of prefer someone who is a little chubby?, ugly?, nerdy? In a wheel chair?  Blind? Insecure?...just something unpleasant that gives him the humility we all need to stick with it and see the positive without the distraction of his ego.

At the beginning of learning to regulate my anxiety around intimate relationships I read that often people who've been raised with healthy attachment look for, find and commit to a healthy relationship earlier in life, and it sticks.  I wanted to scream.  What about those of us who could commit and provide a wonderful partnership, but learned it later on in life?  Or who will feel anxious, but just need a bit more reassurance than other people?  What about those of us a bit more wounded?  We deserve love too.  We deserve a healthy relationship too.

My adult daughter and I had a good conversation about relationships today.  She's decided that it's very important that the person who she meets be "kind"...that is her first priority.  I suspect she might've met someone recently, but time will tell!

I've seen from your writing that you have grown a great deal and continue to value personal growth.  You've developed wisdom and the ability to discern which people can reciprocate a healthier friendship.  You don't need to be around someone who's frequently angry, complaining and unhappy.
   
But that void, even if it was sometimes filled with unpleasantness, still exists.  It hurts.  The feelings of abandonment relived.

I know that you're very careful about media, but have you read or watched Wild!?  Empowering movie.  It was just what I needed when I was going through my recent break up, although we never had "the talk"...we both just stopped.  But my heart knew and the movie helped.

Finally, I just want to say that you've put in words here what I'd intuited all of my life.  It's emotionally safer in Latin America.  People know how to love and support one another.  It's an "easier" environment.  And for those of us who've lived with so much trauma that might be exactly what we need.  On the other hand being an "outsider" around so many healthy families can feel alienating.  I hope that there are some people whose company can bring you comfort.  Often Latinos reach out quickly when they know that someone is in pain, like a "break up"...I hope that perhaps you have some people like that around you?  Neighbors?  Other friends or aquaintances? 

And what Cat mentioned rings true, this is bringing up grief on many levels, career & friend & family ...

So, across the continents in "Mexico, USA" te deseo lo mejor, lo mereces

[marycontrary]

Thank you C. (and the rest of you guys). Man, this is really a great group. Just a really rough day yesterday.  Flook and C, the poetic way you guys express yourselves is just amazing. Really appreciated.

I find sexy a man who has his "stuff" together. Good manager of his life, takes responsibility for things. I have to wear the pants all the time, as so many situations ans people are toxic and I have to be the super brave adult with brass balls to get out of them. I just think it is HOT when the guy can wear the pants and be a man.  Like you, I really don't need anybody, and I really need my own space at this moment.

Like a lot of people here, I have had to go to extreme measures to try to recover. In a way, it is almost like I live like a Buddhist Monk or Nun (There is Pema Chodren for ya'), as even small distractions like a TV or gaming system mess up the recovery, as it takes up so much time for me.

A guy is going to have to appreciate this, and not come in a trash the scene up (I mean literally and figuratively). Cant do older men anymore, unless they really have it together. Most are in horrible physical condition, and ripe for placing preventable liabilities on the relationship (I will not be somebody's nurse maid). This sounds really calculating, but from experience, I do not need a person who is a walking liability and disaster. I don't think any of us in our recovery really need that.

I don't think it is ever too late to develop decent relationships. Yes there are some people who strike out and hit the jackpot because of better attachment skills learned as a baby. But unless they have had to really learn that "humility" you talked about, you will find strange and bizarre character deficits of another kind. 

I have cousins that have been married for a long time, and get along, but scratching a little past the surface, you find some strange, destructive, delusional, codependent tendencies. Really, it does not appear healthy at all.
I have known very few people who have true healthy relationships.

I think (and somebody else said it here) that the more you improve yourself, the better magnet you become. The process of becoming self possessed. Really having priorities in order. Not just bending over to the will of the machine.

You daughter sounds like an awesome woman!


 


   

[flookadelic]

Hallo there. I once told a friend that if I ever found the perfect relationship I was going to quit it. "Why?" they asked. "Because I'd only spoil it" came my punchline. I think we place on others a burden that only we ourselves can discharge; to bring our happiness into being. Of course one cannot or should put up with glaring imperfections and damaging flaws! But, as they say, no ones perfect and no one else can *make* me happy. That's an inside job. I'm lucky now to have a marriage where I seek to share the happiness I have rather than my previous modus operandi kicking in. Which was to sit on top of the relationship and suck out the happiness like a co-dependent vampire I was.

Yes, I'm not a perfect husband and my wife isn't the perfect wife. We argue about physics and drink just a bit too much wine (but never to drunkeness). She can be sarcastic to a breathtaking degree and I can be practically dysfunctional to the point of inflicting mental pain on the poor woman. But we are so lucky because we just ask ourselves to be friends and take responsibility for our own happiness. The better to then share it.

This condition has cost me so much in relationships. So much. But has it made me mindful of getting and keeping it right.

I hope I haven't come over smug or anything. Nowt worse than "you're down so listen to how together I am" but if I'm to talk about relationships whilst in a relationship I suppose I run that risk. If I have annoyed you on that count, please forgive me. I just wanted to illustrate my points with a practical example.

[marycontrary]

Flook, I am so happy you have healthy companionship, and you got this later in life. Seriously, I need to hear about mechanical aspects of non dysfunctional relationships, cause honestly, there aren't that damned many of them to model oneself after.

Right now I am really sensitive and I have a few small good things that are precarious, like recovery (did you see my thread on this?). I really do not want anybody to crash in and * my * up. Screw up all of the hard, hard won progress I have made neurologically. Honestly, if there is a guy out there whom having a relationship with would be synergistic and not tear me down, I would kiss his feet forever.

I have special needs---see here what I have had to do (near the bottom of the first post).
http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=896.0

The typical westernized guy just won't cut it. The typical guy is waaayyy too much of a liability.